Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-12-07

shoulder and shook her. Not even this effort
succeeded in rousing the sleeping woman.
She still lay back in the chair, possessed by a
torpor like the torpor of charlottesville to
sound insensihle to touch. Was she really
sleepingl Or had she faintedf
Agnes looked closer at her. She had not
tainted. Her breathing was audible, rising
and falling, in deep, heavy gasps. At inter
walls she ground her teeth savagely. Beads of
perspiration stood thickly on her forehead.
Her clinched hands rose and fell slowly from
time to time on her lap. Was she in the
agony of dreaml or was she spiritually con
scious of something hidden in the rooms
The doubt involved in that last question
was uncomfortable Agnes determined to rouse
the servants who kept watch in the hotel at
night.
The bell handle was fixed to the wall on the
side of tine bed by which the table stood.
She raised herself from the crouching posi-
ton she had assumed in looking close at the
| countess and, turning toward the other side
| Of the bed, stretched out her hand to the bell
At the same instant she stopped and looked
upward Her hand fell helplessly at her side
| She shuddered, and sunk back on the pillow
! What had she SEEM
| She had seen another intruder in her ROOM
| Midway between her and the ceiling there
lowered human head-severed at the neck,
| like head struck from the body by the guillo-
| tine.
Nothing visible, nothing audible had given
her warning of its appearance. Silently and
suddenly, che head had taken its place above
| her No supernatural change had passed
over the room, or was perceptible in it now
| The dumbly tortured figure in the chair; the
| broad window opposite the foot of the bed,
with the black night beyond it; the candle
| burning on the table-these, and all other OBJ
jects in the room, remained unaltered. One
object more, unutterably horrid. had been
added to the rest. That was the only change
| no more, no less
By the yellow candle light she saw the head
distinctly lowering in mid air above her. She
looked at it steadfastly spellbound by the
terror that held her
The flesh of the face was gone. The shriv-
eled skin was darkened in hue, like the skin
of an Egyptian mummy-except at the neck
There it was of lighter color; there it
showed spots and splashes of the hue of that
brown spot on the ceiling, which the childis
fanciYul terror had distorted iato the like
ness of spot of blood. Thin reE, ins of a
discolored mustache and whiSkers, hanging
over the upper lip, and over the hollows
where the cheeks had once been. made the
head just recognizable as the head of a man.
Over all the features death and time had done
their celebrating work. The eyelids were
closed. The hair on the skull, discolored like
the hair on the face, had been burned away
in places. The blush lips, parted in a fixed
grin, showed the double row of teeth. By
slow degrees the lowering head perfectly
still when she first saw it, began to descend
toward Agnes as she lay beneath. By slow
degrees that strange, doubly blended odol
which the commissioners had discovered il
the vaults of the old palace-which had sick
ened Francis Westwick in the bed chamber Of
the new hotel-spread its fetid exhalation.
over the room downward and downward
the hideous apparition made its slow prog
ress until it stopped close over Agnes
stopped and turned slowly. so that the face o.
it confronted the upturned face of the woman
in the chair.
After that there came pause Then
monentary animation disturbed the rigid re
pose of the dead face. The closed eyelid
opened slowly. The eyes revealed them
selves, bright with the CLASSY film of death
and fixed their dreadful look ON the woman
in the chair.
Agnes saw that look; saw the reclinin:
woman rise, as if in obedience TO some drea,
command-and saw no more
Her next conscious impression was of TIN
sunlight pouring in at the window; of tn
friendly presence of Lady Montbarry at tn
bedside, and of the children's wondering face
peeping in at the door.